


They Appear At Night

by blindPersecutor



Category: Caduceus | Trauma Center Series
Genre: Blood, Gen, Gore, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindPersecutor/pseuds/blindPersecutor
Summary: Some nights, Naomi's past comes back to haunt her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [WARNING: Blood and some gore in this fic, some vivid imagery. Please continue on if you feel you're okay with it. SO/TT spoilers, set post-TT.]

They appear at night.

They come when the night is still, when the world itself seems to be holding its breath. They come when the only hint of light is the ethereal light of a scant moon and stars.

They come for her.

She sees them in the pallid light, filtering through their bodies. Leering yellow eyes appraise her, sizing her up with an almost predatory glint. She wonders, sometimes, what Sandra was like before the infection that claimed her life. She wonders, sometimes, what the owners of the young voices are like. Soft strains of other languages reach her ears as they crowd around her bed. Sometimes they’re whole. Sometimes they’re as she saw them during her work- incisions and tubes, fluid dripping from them and the heavy piping dragging wetly against the wood floors.

They reach out to her. 

Specters of her former cases glare down at her with hollow eyes, the cast changing with each occurrence. Putrefying muscles cling to the Cage girl’s skeleton, a failed juxtaposition of how she was and what she was like in life. Her face- what remains- is twisted in a grimace of pain. Naomi wants to tear her eyes away; can’t, even as she struggles against the suffocating stasis. No words escape, only a helpless whine. As if sensing her distress, Parker looks down at her with a kindlier look- but with the fatal wound is on full display. Black ichor drips down her skin, stains the bedspread. Red seems to swirl inside it like something possessed, writhing and twisting in on itself.

On rare occasions Taylor leans down, the petechiae startlingly clear on his clouded eyes. His desperate gasping is accompanied by the sound of air rushing out- every time, she notes with sickening certainty that it’s from the stab wound. Posner and Eldred are rare- torn-apart corpses, ash and angry burned flesh marring their skin, jagged metal glinting in moonlight with still-fresh blood painting it. Necrotic skin sloughs off of the athlete’s visage; the student’s sweatshirt is in tatters that seem to flow and drip down his skin as blood. Black bruises crawl and pulse on Sartre’s deathly pale skin, a compliment to Lieberman’s still markings. Long-dried blood stains her skin, and Naomi’s heart beats out a staccato- she’s sure her spectral audience can hear it. Lieberman seems to- her mouth stretches in a too-wide manic grin. Grotesque joy shines in her eyes.

“Did you think you were rid of me, Corpse Whisperer?” A weak whimper escapes Naomi’s lips as rigid fingers reach out for her. She fights, tries, fails to break out of it.

The old cases are bad- but the Sinners are worse.

A young man sits slumped next to her bed, breathing labored and wet. His words slur and bubble as he speaks, desperation coloring his tone. He turns to her.

“Doctora... No p-puedo respirar... Ayúdeme por favor,” he weakly begs. His shallow breath hitches. Two dark spots on his chest, throbbing and churning as the liquid and parasite within slosh around are clearly visible; his wide eyes stare into hers, pleading with her to fix what she had been part of. Sickness rises in her as the wracking sobs of a child join Pempti’s Sinner. Something runs and coils under the skin of the young boy, chest bulging grotesquely out as something tries to burst out. A chill seems to come over her as he cries out, a word that stabs into her before he falls silent.

“Mama!”

Naomi renews her struggle every time they gather around her bed, doing anything she can to break out of the paralysis- trying to force her fingers to move, to blink her eyes, to do anything to end the hell. She doesn’t want to face it- she’s atoning, she’s working to right her wrongs, so why do you always come back to me? She fights to scream the words that would make them dissipate. Dripping gel, wet tearing flesh, laborious breathing, whimpers; cries of pain and desperation and fear. They become more ghastly- blood and gel streak down their skin from open wounds. GUILT crawls on and out of them, the parasites drop onto her bedspread and crawl towards her. They all speak different languages, but the sentiment is the same. _Help me. Mama, papa. It hurts. Why are you doing this to me? Doctor!_

Her finger twitches as they babble. She latches onto that, the finger jerking as she moves it. Her eyes blink once, twice. The sleep paralysis ends.

Her bedroom is empty.

She pulls in a breath, greedily, her exhalation shaky. Her body trembles minutely. Every time she blinks, the imagery of those people surrounding her bed spring to mind. She needs light- slowly she gets up and turns the lamp on her bedside table on. Everything is normal. There’s no monstrous parasites crawling and squirming on her bed. No rotting tissue on her floor. No gel shining slickly on her floor. No blood drying to a tacky mess on her floor. Her body is heavy with fatigue and relief as she lays back down, sleep calling to her every time she blinks so slowly. She’s well aware they’ll be back if she does, taunting and begging and accusing. With a soft sigh of denial she shakes her head.

Morning will come, and the lightening sky will bring safety. For now, the warm light of her lamp will do when she’s sure the shadows of her past won’t come back to her. The covers rustle as she shifts, laying on her side. Her breath and heart rate gradually return to a calmer rate, and the light soothes her- makes her feel safe, like when her parents would comfort her when she was young. In the light, they won’t return. The minutes crawl by, and without realizing it, her eyes shut and sleep takes her.

Naomi’s sleep is dreamless.


End file.
